All This Happened, More or Less
by tia8206
Summary: James has always been been good at getting out of stuff he don't want to do, but he just don't see any way around this.  One shot.


**Wrote this for a Secret Santa over on the LJ community called Lostsquee, a few weeks back... although it actually has nothing to do with Christmas.**

**The prompts I used, in case anyone is curious, were "after the island," baby!fic and angst. Obviously some of my very favorite things.**

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><p><em>"And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much was mine to keep."<em>

- Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five)

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><p>Thing is, this date's been looming over him for months now, and for just about as long, he's been trying to figure out how to get out of it. James has always been been good at getting out of shit he don't want to do, but he just don't see any way around this.<p>

Ain't like he hadn't tried. "You know, Jack could always take him," he got in at one point. Course, Juliet was in early labor at the time, and he'd gotten the kind of glare that had the power to make his blood run cold for weeks.

It's perfectly warm in the the kitchen this morning, though, humid almost, and David's hunched over the drivers' manual. He barely looks up as James fills up the coffeemaker, loosens the twist-tie on the bread, hauls out the carton of cage-free, cruelty-free eggs.

(He hadn't remembered her as a bleeding-heart on the island, unless it was in the literal sense - the shoot-a-man-straight-through-the-heart-at-a-hundred-yards sense. But that's just a blip in the long list of changes this time around).

Anyway, not important right now. What's important is breakfast, and the fact that no chickens were treated unethically is just a bonus feature. Juliet's been ravenous ever since the baby was born, he guesses it makes sense, seeing as she's feeding another person from herself. Weird as that seems. (Like nothing else in their lives has ever been weird.)

David turns a page; James grits his teeth.

He cracks the first egg into a bowl, small and brown. David's eyes move over a page, but from here, without his glasses, James can't tell parallel parking from three-point turns.

The kid just _had _to schedule his driving test a week after Juliet's due date, didn't he? ("The baby could be late," she'd pointed out, way back when. Well, sure, but Juliet was just too damned conscientious to do anything like have the baby not according to schedule, right?)

James guesses it could be worse. Hell, _he _could be the one taking David to the DMV this morning. Instead, he'll be hanging out here, just him and his eight-day-old son for what, two hours? Three? What's he supposed to do? Not like he can pop out a boob when the baby starts squalling.

OK, so, yeah, fine, he's been helping with the baby the past eight days, changing him, rocking him, burping and wiping and soothing, but almost all of that's been with Juliet practically in arm's reach, and frankly, she's done all the so-called heavy lifting.

"Gonna make your mom some breakfast, you want some?" he finally says, like it ain't obvious already.

David grunts noncommittally. He'd never get away with that in front of Jules, that's for damn sure. It's been three years, and mostly they've hit cruising altitude. But it's pretty clear to James that every now and then, it occurs to David that there's this interloper here who's been _doing his mom_, for god's sake.

(Or, he admits to himself, maybe he's the one assigning himself the label of interloper. But that's too much to think about when he ain't had a good night's sleep in more than a week.)

Eggs are almost done when David clears his throat. "Mom's still taking me today, right?"

He imagines suggesting David might wanna call Jack, but almost just as quickly envisions either a.) One of those long expressionless (hereditary) stares or, b.) David deciding to take him up on the idea, which would mean James has to deal with Jack's smug face at his front door.

('Sides, he hadn't missed the nervousness in his stepson's voice.)

James plunks a mug onto the counter. "Sure is, Andretti."

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><p>In the upstairs hallway, James hesitates in the same spot as always, at a cluster of old framed photographs up on the wall. Mostly from David's babyhood. James pauses, as usual, right at the picture of an impossibly young Juliet in a hospital gown. He stares at the little smushed-up critter in her arms, tying to reconcile this with the 5-foot-10-and-still-growing teenager downstairs. And with the little one he knows is in her arms right now, just on the other side of the next door.<p>

(How is this all supposed to work out OK?)

(Back in Dharma, he'd started to think it'd all work out OK, and guess what happened _there._)

He swallows hard, Juliet's plate growing heavy in his left hand, and then he's nudging the door open with his foot.

As usual these days, Juliet's in the glider with Owen, staring down at his tiny gulping face. Her feet are up on the ottoman, her socks mismatched. One thing he still don't quite understand: how happy she always is to see him, and how it ain't got a damn thing to do with the fact that he's bringing her food.

"Oh, thank god, I'm starving."

Yeah, yeah, maybe he should just take himself down another notch or two.

Keeping the baby's head cradled at the inside of her right elbow, Juliet balances the plate on the arm of the glider, eating with her left hand like she's actually ambidextrous and was just keeping it a secret 'til now. He leans up again the wall, sipping his coffee, trying to pretend like he don't notice how naturally this all comes to her.

"David's up," he says, which ain't at all what he'd meant to say. "You don't gotta go... I mean, I can take him." Yeah, yeah, turns out he _would _rather take David to the DMV than be left here. That baby is just so damn _small_, and...

The fork's halfway to her mouth when she pauses, staring at him, and her cheeks swell in the smallest of smiles. She puts the fork down, so quietly it don't even make a sound. "You'll be fine," she tells him.

"Well, _maybe_," he concedes. "But who's gonna get my back?"

Her smile evolves into an actual laugh. (He hadn't even gotten her to laugh at the dock that night. Although it'd been the closest he'd ever gotten before.) "Now where've I heard that before?"

James grins back at her, giving her a nice shot of dimples, 'cause who don't need that on this humid, gray summer morning?

But then. "When Clem had her kids - " he begins without thinking, and Juliet jerks her head up toward his, alarmed.

(Thing is, that was a whole other life ago, those decades and decades without her, learning to be a father to his little girl, bein' the kid of granddad who wasn't afraid to climb into the treehouse even though he grumbled about it.)

Anyway, they don't exist no more, do they. He shakes his head at her, and she looks back down at her plate.

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><p>From the upstairs window of Owen's new room, James watches them go.<p>

David opens the passenger door for his mother, a complete gentleman when he wants to be, and Juliet eases herself down, still clearly uncomfortable. "You got yourself a good mama," he says to the baby in his arms, who spits up a little in response.

James cleans him up as he listens to Juliet's Volvo back down the driveway, and now they're alone, and his heart-rate revs up.

(_What would we have done with a baby?_ he'd once asked Kate. Well, whatever he's doing with one, he's doing it now.)

"You in for a couple rounds of poker, small fry?"

The baby stares up at him, going a little cross-eyed.

"Guess not."

(His grandkids used to make that face, when they were first born. 'Cept he ain't even forty yet, this time around. His uncle gave him a stern talking-to when he was 19, this time around, and he went into the police academy, and now he puts guys like... like... well, like _him _in jail.)

(_You're not like that anymore_, an imaginary Juliet tells him. And boy, does he ever know about imaginary Juliets. He spent more years talking to imaginary Juliets than he ever did, or has, to the real one. Ones.)

He's still standing next to the changing table, a dirty baby wipe in his hand. Owen flails at him a little. James tosses the wipe into the diaper genie.

Does he need a nap? He ain't hungry, that's for sure. James experimentally lies him down in the bassinet, backs away slowly. Silence. That's a good sign.

Now what?

He inches forward, peeks over the edge. Owen looks at him. He looks back.

Aw, hell.

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><p>Owen finally conks out in his bassinet, but after a couple of quiet hours, he starts wailing over the baby monitor. James rushes in like he's the damned cavalry, but all's he can do is change his diaper, jiggle him, pace. Juliet had explained about making up a bottle if he needed to, but that she'd rather he didn't. Apparently babies can get confused about the whole thing if they're too young, won't breastfeed anymore.<p>

He don't see what's so confusing about that, not when there's a million other things to get confused about in this universe. Or the other one.

(He took Clementine for her driving test. She'd passed on the first try, even being so nervous about the parallel parking.)

"C'mon, just a little bit longer," James tells him, rubbing his back in slow circles, but the baby just rocks against him angrily, crying harder. There's a horizontal line across the top of his nose, and it makes James uneasy to look at, because, _Jesus_, it's just another sign that this is his kid, and once again, he has everything to lose.

Down in the kitchen, he's got the baby in the carrier, trying to understand the fucking formula instructions when all he can hear is furious sobs. Then David is bursting into the kitchen, racing up the stairs, and Juliet comes in after him, moving more slowly until she zeroes in on the baby, suddenly speeding up, hurrying to the kitchen island and grabbing him.

"Sorry, there was such a long line." And then her shirt's halfway up and the baby's up against her while she just, you know, stands there in the kitchen.

James tries to force himself not to avert his eyes. Instead he jerks his head up toward the ceiling. "He pass, or what? Couldn't even tell."

Juliet rolls her eyes a little, rocking back and forth with the baby. "He passed. I assume he's calling everyone in the world as we speak."

"You should get the kid a damn cell phone already, Jules."

"Probably now that he'll be driving on his own, I will." She eases down onto one of the counter stools. "You know if Jack had his way, he'd have had one by the age of 10."

The line is subtle most days, but then other times it's smacking them right in their faces, like now. Upstairs, that's Juliet's kid. In the kitchen here, this is _their _kid.

It's kinda like that other line they constantly cross, their own version of a powered-down electric fence:

On the island, she clomped around in some shit-kicking steel-toed work boots. Here, her closet is lined with all these delicate-looking pointy-toed high heels.

On the island, they were so goddamn careful. Here, she forgets to take her pill two days in a row 'cause she was working an overnight, and boom: Owen.

On the island, they talked about the future like it was as wispy and insubstantial as a cloud: _if_ they left the island; _if_ they got back to their right time. Here, the future runs wide and deep; anything can happen.

And that's just the fucking point, isn't it: _Anything_ can happen. James has lost everything before; hey, technically a couple times, even, in totally different ways. (Or three, if you count his parents, which some days he does and some days he don't). His mouth goes dry; he grips the edge of the counter, letting out a shaky breath.

Juliet's watching him closely, the kind of stare that used to make him unbelievably uneasy, once upon a time. Like back when he was in a cage, and her buddies had all the keys. She switches the baby to her other side, not even looking down. "This is real, you know."

He's nodding too many times. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

Except she's still staring at him, her eyes big and sad, shaking her head. "But that doesn't make everything else _not _real."

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><p>After, he tells Juliet to go ahead, take a nap, everything's fine, honest. She looks ready to pass out, anyway. "I love you," she tells him at the door to their room.<p>

"I love you back," he says, and yeah. Yeah, that feels real. He presses a kiss to her forehead, closing his eyes, breathing her in, only she smells like milk, not at all like he's used to. On the island she smelled like Dharma shampoo and motor oil. Here she usually smells like some Clinique perfume she keeps on a bathroom shelf. (It was so fucking weird the first time he saw her expertly navigating through the DVR menu.)

Carrying Owen through the upstairs hallway, James stops when David's door flies open.

"Mom around?"

"Takin' a nap."

His forehead furrows. "She said I could borrow the car."

"Keys on the counter. You be careful. Remember what she told ya." No friends in the car for six months, pay attention to the road, no fooling with his iPod or the stereo unnecessarily, be home before nine, blah blah blah. ("Jesus, Blondie, don't you want the kid to have _any _fun?" he'd asked her.)

"I will. Uh... hang on." David ducks back into his room for a second; James just stands there with the baby on his shoulder until David emerges, clutching a pastel-colored picture book. He frowns a little. Looks like Jack when he does that. "My mom used to read this to me. I found it in the basement the other day. I dunno, maybe Owen would like it."

James looks at the cover. _Guess How Much I Love You. _"Thanks," he tells David, then thinks maybe he should say something more. "Means a lot." Because, it kinda does, is the thing.

David lowers his gaze, a Jack expression replaced by a Juliet one. "Yeah, well. Uh. See you later."

Between David's room and Owen's, James slows down again. Looks at the pictures on the wall again, Juliet in the hospital with David. The photo is washed-out, that crappy film quality of the early '90s, too many blacks and yellows. Her skin is pale, her eyes fatigue-ringed. What he never noticed before was how damn _scared_ she looks, here.

"You don't get to leave," he tells the Juliet in the picture. "Not this time."

He settles down in Juliet's (OK, their) glider, with the baby's head in the crook of his elbow. Still feels awkward, but... a lifetime ago, he'd made a living out of pretending to be someone he wasn't. Nowadays, he knows there's no faking: He either is, or he ain't.

With only one hand available, he struggles to open the book, but eventually, he gets it.

James looks down at the first page. "You'll like this one," he tells his son. "It's about bunnies."


End file.
